With the new masteries of 5.2, I'm gonna hop back into league after my little break and see if Taric is an absolute monster. Expect to hear from me soon xoxo

Alright chaps and chapettes, I am HappyChappyX, you can find my account Chappo118 on the EUW server! I made it to Diamond at the end of Season 4. Taric got me from Silver to high Platinum before I stopped playing him and eventually picked him back up again at Diamond, where he is still reigning dominant for me! Before we talk about Taric, I want to make this clear. Any Taric players seen flaming shall be disowned and barred from all local pubs, so yeah. You better not flame! I don't quite remember reading a lore where all the summoners are calling eachother, ahem, "Pieces of **** that should "uninstall" and watch as their family are tortured in front of them". If that is the case then I guess they are role playing correctly! Now that that is out of the way, I will be giving tips on playing Taric. I have probably a total of 900+ games with him, both Ranked and Normal so I am very confident in talking about him and his play style!

In my Runes and Masteries, I primarily focus on defences. +21 Armour from marks and quints, 216 HP and 27 Magic Resist at level 18 scale much better into the late game as Taric's Shatter is leveled and he is leveled up himself! Taric can become very overwhelming to deal with as he will begin to take so little damage and start spamming heavily because of how effective Gemcraft is later into the game. Taric's Armour shred and damage from Shatter scale with armor so it only makes sense to build as much of it as possible! The Health per level seals also increase the healing potential of Imbue and just gives him more survivability.

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9

Greater Mark of Armor

These compliment Taric's Shatter passive and active. The way I play him is all about being as tanky was possible, in other words, damage isn't necessary. Taric shreds the Armour of his enemies to allow his team to deal more damage.

9

Greater Seal of Scaling Health

Health is very viable on Taric as his Imbue has an AP and a bonus HP ratio. This allows Taric to sustain a little more in lane and also heal just slightly higher in the early game and quite a lot more in the late game! We also have more than enough Armour early game!

9

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist

As Taric greatly relies on Armour, his Magic Resist can be a little lacking. Sometimes you may find yourself with 300 Armour, ready to pound anybodies face in and then get immediately blown up by their AP Caster or Support, only to realize that your lovely little Taric is waddling around with 50 Magic Resist!

3

Greater Quintessence of Armor

These pair up with our Marks very nicely and give a fabulous boost to our early game survivability! It is fun getting shot by a Caitlyn Headshot for 70 damage!

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9

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

These help increase your damage for early game brawls and late game teamfights! As all of Taric's damage is Magical Damage, including his Autoattacks after Gemcraft has been activated. The extra early game damage does help but I prefer the extra Armour shred and Armour sharing for my ally.

9

Greater Seal of Scaling Armor

We have enough early game Armour from our Marks, Quints and Shatter. Now it is time for some late game Armour to scale up into the late game; the place where Taric becomes impossible to defeat!

6

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist

These are useful if you are also running 9/21/0 masteries. Having 10% CDR at level 1 is effective as it allows Taric to pump out heals a lot quicker, but I don't really like them as my build grants 40% CDR and Taric is already a Mana Hungry Spam Machine in exchanges anyway!

3

Greater Quintessence of Health

These synergize well with the Greater Seal of Scaling Health runes as sometimes these extra 78 Hitpoints can be the difference between Life and Death. Also, extra HP also makes the cost effectiveness of your Imbue a lot bigger. It is 60 mana at level 1 for 120 Hitpoints (60 for you and your ally) which could be 140! (70 for you and your ally)

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Gemcraft has received many different nerfs in the past and even a complete rework. It went from turning 7.5% of damage you deal from auto attacks into mana, into what it is today! I prefer the latter. Gemcraft is a very powerful passive as it completely ups Taric's DPS and allows him to send out stuns every 5 seconds. This spell has a specific Combo. E, auto attack, W, auto attack, Q, auto attack, W, auto attack, and repeat. You may find slight disruptions in the pattern but you can still pretty much pull this off for a flawless infinitely 3 second cool down on all spells! (Excluding Radiance)

Imbue is a very powerful healing spell that works similarly to Sona's Aria of Perseverance in the way it heals both her and her ally. Imbue is the strongest healing spell in the game as it heals for 120 at level 1 all the way up to 440 at level 5. As both him and his ally are healed for the same amount so basically this is effectively doubling the cost effectiveness of the heal. If you have a level 2 Imbue with no bonuses from AP or HP, you will heal yourself and your ally for 100 each, making it a total of 200. Healing yourself will increase the effectiveness of the heal by 40% making it so you heal yourself for 140 instead of 100. This means that using Imbue on an ally reduces the mana cost per hitpoint healed. Sometimes though, alls you can do is heal yourself!

This is the Bread and Butter to why Taric and his carry can become so overwhelmingly tanky in the early-mid game (Imbue is the bread and butter of late game!) Shatter scales solely off of Armour, meaning the more Armour you have, the more damage you will deal and the higher amount of Armour you will shred!. The thing about this spell is that it could seem tricky to use, do you keep it active so you and your allies don't lose Armour? Or do you use it and lower the enemy's Armour? The answer is simple! You use it. Only when there is a fight though, since if you use it on a minion wave or something, you will not only push the lane but there will be a brief period of time where you can be harassed and the harassment will actually hurt! It is best to run into the enemy team and use Shatter on as many enemies as possible, however if they have a lot of "Backline Bursters" it is important to save it to help your ADC and APC and peel for them. You'll be surprised how effective Shatter can become as you reduce the enemy Nasus's Armour by 35!

Dazzle, although on paper it seems easy to use, a point and click target spell has some important responsibilities! A skill shot has the chance of being intercepted, so you therefore have a reason to mess it up. But if you are seen stunning the enemy Sona while Katarina spins2win you all to death, then it is your fault! Dazzle may take a while to get used to. Sometimes it is not about using as quick as possible in order to make it's cooldown come back quicker, it's about using it at the right moment. With Gemcraft, Dazzle's cooldown will be pretty minuscule anyway. Also, if the enemies see that you have used your only CC ability, things could go horribly wrong and in Solo Queue, you can only rely on yourself!

This is an extremely powerful spell that turns Taric into a hybrid of a pure tank and a very, very powerful fighter! Not only this, but he also buffs his team for 50% of the effect that Radiance has effected Taric! Radiance is a powerful steroid that basically gives your team a half a Baron Buff, aswell as granting yourself close to 2 of them! This buff can go a very, very long way. Radiance strangely enough, as much as an offensive spell it is, seems completely perfect for Taric! He is always auto attacking to proc Gemcraft which itself deals a small amount of extra damage. You'll find yourself with 160 AD, 50 AP and slightly stronger heals! Also, you're probably going to win the teamfight if your team is effectively going to get free AD and AP every fight. It is important to cast Radiance as a teamfight starts. Not after your whole team has blew every one of their spells. If you can cast Radiance on top of an enemy, that is just a bonus. However, the extra damage from the cast of it isn't very impressive. It is more of just a aura than anything.

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Exhaust and Flash are recommended. However, Ignite can be taken over Exhaust against somebody such as Soraka. Flash can be substituted for Ghost as it will allow Taric to gank and chase effectively if that is what the team requires.

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You, the player. I want you to go into a game, cleansed. Every little bit of rage inside of you I want vanquished before you even touch my manly little Taric! Taric's lore states that he has always been intrigued in Gems. Not only this, but his father used to heal people and that interested him! He wanted to help people from a young age and that is what I want you to do, summoner! Whenever you play Taric, I want you to hold back every little bad thought you will ever had and play the game as if you had your 2 young children next to you! It's not just about making Taric players look good! It's about lifting the spirits of the team, making sure everybody is happy and friendly. Making an impact. Right now people see that this game is just flooded in flame, toxicity and hatred. Is it fair that everyone of us are grouped in this negative view? No. It's not. So let's all go and make a difference! Did your Lee Sin force a tower dive and get all 3 of you killed? Of course this is a really bad thing to happen, but you've got to be all like "Yo Lee Sin dawg, try not to dive so early next time! But that Resonating Strike you hit was nice!" You've got to tell him how they could improve and what they did well, but mostly what they did well. Usually I go for the "Ugh better luck next time, don't worry." or the "Sorry it was my fault, I should've 360 no scoped Twitch earlier..." approaches.

Please remember that items are nothing more than a guide line and not a cement brick that you have to carry around on your back, adjust the build to your own play style and to the enemy composition!

Relic Shield is probably the best on Taric as it gives him and his carry even more sustain with the execute. This basically allows you to save mana on heals and just rely on the Relic Shield until you need to heal! Also, bonus HP scales with Imbue so your heals will be more potent. Builds into Face of the Mountain which I do believe is core on Taric.

The Mana Potion beats the Health Potion with Taric. Further down, I will be explaining the Mana Potion phenomenon and you will find that Taric gets more HP for both him and his carry with 1 Mana Potion than 1 Health Potion for himself. The two early Mana potions though cover Taric's backside early game as he is very heavy on mana usage when fighting!

The single Health Potion makes up for the lack of Imbue at both level 1, but also just saves mana when your ADC is relatively healthy and don't need to Imbue yourself, which could potentially cost you a fight later if you run out of mana.

Required before having a Sweeping Lens as you do not purchase a Stealth Ward at the start of the game.

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Targon's Brace

Grabbing this over Sightstone is priority because the earlier you can grab this item, the more cash you can get! It also has great stats and the frequent healing from the passive is very, very useful and saves Taric a lot of Mana!

Grabbing this along with a Sweeping Lens should be your priority after Targon's Brace. It gives you bonus Health which scales with your Imbue and makes you survive a little longer, and it is also the core item for supports as the ward coverage from this item is phenomenal. Also, why wouldn't you want the most cost efficient item in the game with all those wards?

If you can't afford anything, these aren't a bad thing to start out with. If you jungler comes and helps, you can get to the enemy slightly faster and be able to Dazzle them before they can do anything. Good investment if you can afford these and Sightstone

Recommended if you cannot afford the Sightstone on your first recall, which happens often.

Same reason as the Stealth Ward, however this one is more specific. Purchasing this will allow you to either have vision control over your enemy if placing it in the Tri-bush or Riverbush, and also allows your team to secure an early dragon, or even allow your jungler to sneak in a solo dragon.

I usually always purchase this on my first back if I can afford a Stealth Ward or even the Sightstone. This is an important item as map/vision control is very key to victory.

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Face of the Mountain

As it builds from our Gold Income item, Targon's Brace, it only makes sense that we build this! However, it is a very powerful item as it can easily keep somebody alive with less than 100 HP. It gives a huge bulk of HP, Health Regen and 10% CDR! I sometimes believe that this item was made solely because of Taric's existence.

Just two words. "Never. Die." This item allows Taric to come out on top of the craziest of engagements! Lots of HP, CDR, Increased Healing and Magic Resist? Yes please! This is great as Magic Resistance is hard to come by now as it is more expensive and is in lesser quantities. This makes sure that Taric isn't at least getting 1 shotted by peeps like Syndra.

Taric requires the Tenacity as he can be kited so incredibly easily. Also, the Magic Resistance is nice to compliment his already none existent Magic Resistance that we barely buy!

Now why on Summoner's Rift would Glacial Shroud be doing here in Core items? Well, the reason for this is because we will be building either Iceborn Gauntlet or Frozen Heart, sometimes both! Also, building an early Glacial Shroud makes Taric's mana problems much, much less of a problem. You won't believe how much this helps.

As soon as you hit Level 9, this should be on your Amazon wishlist. It's key to vision control and it's just fun popping wards, you have to agree.

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I'd say that Taric moves at a Snail's pace, but even the snail would find this offensive. Great item with all in champs such as:

When I first saw this item, endless possibilites swarmed though my mind, and each and every possibility was fulfilled. This item is indeed overpowered. Talisman of Ascension's + Randuin's Omen's active in 1 item? Aswell as a lot of Health to scale with Imbue, Mana for prolonged team fights and 100% Health Regeneration for recovery? Yes please.

A great, almost core item to get if going against a team with lots of CC.

If the enemy team is carrying more than 3 stuns, this item is very important. It also helps to rush, but as it was nerfed quite heavily in patch 4.10, it isn't as rushable as it used to be! But still, it isn't a bad first item to pick up. Make sure you use it after you know for sure the enemy has either blown their CC or are incapable of using the rest.

This can be good for teams with high cooldown CC and Magic Damage. Creates pressure.

This can be used to replace Warmog's Armor but I wouldn't really recommend it unless you are really in need for much more Magic Resistance. The spell shield can easily popped by many low cooldown poking abilities such as Lay Waste, Bushwhack, Volley, etc.

Imbue has a Mana Cost of 60 at level 1. This has a self-cast heal of 84 and a heal of 60 for both him and his ally if casted upon them. A Health Potion heals for 150 HP and a Mana Potion gives 100 Mana.

One Imbue on his ally adds collectively to 120 HP for 60 Mana. This means that after a second heal onto his ally, that will overall be 240 HP for 120 Mana. Using a Mana Potion will mean that you've effectively used 20 Mana to heal 240 HP.

One Imbue onto himself and Taric heals for 84 HP for 60 Mana. Another Imbue means that he will heal 168 HP overall for 120 Mana. Use of a Mana Potion means that only 20 Mana would've been spent for 168 HP.

Both Mana Potions and Health Potions cost 35 Gold, therefore picking either of them won't affect you much in terms of dough, can you see where I am getting at? Mana Regeneration is also a lot slower than Health Regeneration in general, and the amount of times that popping that last Mana Potionhas either saved my life/secured a kill when low on Mana, it's definitely grew on me!

All of this "maths" is without considering anything such as bonus Health from both runes and masteries, the more Health you have, the more cost effective it'll all be! This also doesn't include the Alchemist mastery!

Overall, it's just more cost efficient and reliable to purchase Mana Potions. Culinary Master mastery is useless as it doesn't affect Mana Potions!

Taric's ability to cater both the Health needs for himself and his carry while demoralizing the enemy at the same time is definitely top notch and shouldn't be underestimated. This is what makes him such a brilliant lane partner.

Taric is very good at prolonged fights against the enemy ADC if uninterrupted. In fact, if you are 1v1ing an ADC at level 1, you WILL come on top IF not kited relentlessly and then chased, so I wouldn't really recommend it to be honest. But if your carry is busy kiting their support, do not be afraid to be kited by their carry as you are more than capable of surviving a good 10 Auto attacks while still chucking out damage, even at level 4 and 5.

Taric is rediculously scary at level 5. Even more so at level 6. If you just had an exchange with the enemy, and if you lose your ADC for their Support or your ADC for their ADC, whoever is still alive, whether it is ADC or Support, if you have Flash available to you and enough mana for a Dazzle Shatter, or a Dazzle Radiance combo, you can instantly deal over 200 damage, 300 damage if you use your ultimate along with your Auto attacks in around 1.3 seconds. It is truly, truly, truly, outrageous. The thing I love about this so much is that you can get some funny reactions from the enemy, so surprised that Taric's burst could even be comparable to Karma as your stun deals 140 damage at level 2 at close range and 200 damage at level 3 at close range!

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At the very start of the game, put your first point into Dazzle. This is because if you are invaded, you have a way of dealing with them, or isolating a target to make the invasion go in your favour! Also helps if you, yourself are invading! You want to help your jungler with his/her Krugs or Gromp (depending on what side you are on). Auto, Dazzle, Auto, Run to lane, you can usually fit in a third auto but sometimes you lose the first minion to use your Relic Shield execute on. Not that it matters that much anyway, as there are many more to execute!

Once you reach lane, trigger the first 2 stacks of your Relic Shield on the melee creeps. From this point out, you want to only use your Relic Shield's execute on Siege Minions. But after every 2 Siege Minions you execute, execute a melee minion. This gives you the maximum effectiveness on your Relic Shield's gold income!

At level 1, you do have an advantage. There are no other supports in the game that have access to such an easy stun. If they try and go for a deadly level 1 brawl, they WILL lose. Regardless of who you stun, they will take more damage than you due to their downtime. Also, if you do lose the small fight, it doesn't matter. Take Imbue at level 2 and heal them up! If you do however win the fight, or if there is no fight to begin with. Take Shatter as the bonus Armour works without the cost of mana unlike Imbue's heal, this means you take less damage from autos and your Health regen can put in some work. It is also important to not go too deep at level 1 as you do not have Shatter yet. Your Armour isn't great!

At level 2, your power spike is better among others. Leveling Shatter should make the enemy Leona or Thresh think twice about jumping in. But it won't scare off Karma or Lulu from throwing glitter at you! Your input at this level is basically try and take harass from your enemy that could've been redirected to your ADC. It is also important that if you are playing against a ranged support who is coming in to auto attack you for Pickpocket , or a Thresh who is collecting souls, you can Dazzle and Shatter them to deal a decent amount of damage, you don't even need your ADC to follow you up on this either which makes it very effective. However, if they do follow you up, you've either got a kill or 100% forced 1-2 Health Potions. Other than that, you could just go and watch a movie or go outside. "The light! It burns!" ~ Cho'Gath

Once you reach level 4, both ADCs are getting hard to deal with. They both have all their abilities and extra damage from 2 points into their poking ability. I mean, I am saying they'd be scary if you weren't Taric! But you are! Level 4 Taric beats a Level 4 ADC any day of the weak! It's just the problem with can your level 4 ADC beat their level 4 ADC? MAYBE. MAYBE NOT. But you have to make sure that he/she does! Keep your ADC healed up, keep you mana efficiency high and keep an eye out for Dazzle-ing opportunities as it can mean a kill and rarely a defeat.

Level 6 is when a fight is bound to go down! If you haven't fought before this, then now this is the time! This is your time to shine! Let the Radiance glimmer off of you! Taric's ultimate could be seen as very weak compared to Champions such as Leona, Lulu, Soraka, Morgana, basically every other support except for Karma for obvious reasons, and that is because Radiance doesn't offer any CC or healing (even damage if you aren't close enough) but what it does offer is a direct advantage to you and your ADC's damage, where as other ults offer damage to just themselves if they land, 30 AD and AP for yourself and 15 AD and AP for your ally, that is just a very sweet bonus at this point of the game! Think of it this way, whenever you ult you basically give yourself and allies free gold as stats such as Attack Damage and Ability Power cost Gold, ulting this early into a game is pretty much giving you a theoretical item advantage over your lane opponents! You will find yourself coming out on top if your ADC stays and fights even if he does take a Soul Shackles to the legs or a Solar Flare to the face!

Important

• Remember to keep an eye on the minimap for your team to spot any incoming potential ganks.
• Try and keep the bush nearest to you warded, this can be warded 100% of the time if you and your ADC cycle between trinket uses.
• If you are pushed against the tower, don't be afraid to ask your jungler for a gank. Your Dazzle allows for an easy kill or a guaranteed Flash which makes the next gank even easier.
• If you have pushed to the enemy's tower, time your Imbue with the enemy tower shots and deny the enemy ADC of farm. This is as close to DOTA 2 denying as you can get. It is also utter BM (Bad Manner) in a good manner and we all love that every now and again!

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This is that time of the game where turrets are being obliterated, Dragon is being camped, first items are being completed and people are beginning to rage. Surrendering is just a few minutes away! But that is only for the French!

I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to start purchasing Vision Wards and to upgrade to Oracle's Lens. Vision control is the key to victory as if the enemy can see you coming, they can prepare for the encounter accordingly or retreat, whereas otherwise they would've simply just died!

Taric's mid game is definitely his weakest point. People are starting to get faster than him with Statikk Shiv, Trinity Force and Aether Wisp while all Taric has are his giant triangular boat feet. But we won't let that hinder us!

Let your ADC farm and try and help out other lanes if possible, most suitably with the jungler. If you get can set up a gank for Jarvan IV and Orianna, you will most likely get a kill. If not, you will force a flash and/or force them to recall. That and your team will have 3 mid, forcing their jungler and bottom lane to help protect the turret allowing your top laner to be more aggressive and your ADC to split push. If not, then you get a free tower!

Remember to keep Dragon warded as it is the main objective. The buff from Dragon wins games as the team will potentially have (if they get the Dragon) more Damage, Sieging Potential, Damage, Movement Speed, Wave Clear and finally the game ending 150 True damage over 5 seconds buff. Dragon is essential, try and deny the enemy from attempting to start a brawl by zoning them and keeping the jungler away from Smite range at all times with Dazzle. If you die for Dragon, it is worth it.

Taric in the mid game is mostly just about healing and stunning, stunning and healing. Not much of anything else! However, if a teamfight does break out, cast Radiance ASAP and peel for the priority target on your team, whether at that point of time is your Mid laner or ADC. Use the Gemcraft combo and keep Peeling and Healing! (omg that name drop) Near the end of this phase, people are starting to finish their 3rd and 4th items aswell as secure objectives such as towers with 3-4 players.

Important

• Victory is this
• If your team is ahead, try and get some deep jungle warding into the enemy's jungle. This will allow you to try and catch people out and/or prepare yourselves for a gank.
• Jet fuel can't melt steal beams.

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Late Game

You're almost unstoppable at this point. Spirit Visage + Face of the Mountain + Imbue = An absolutely obnoxious amount of self healing and shields, or even allied! Regardless of the 40% extra healing on yourself or not. At this point of a game, typically you'd have over 300 Armour, 3k HP, 40% CDR and around 100 Magic Resistance. Your enemies are going to get very frustrated trying to either focus you down, which you will just /Laugh away from anyway, or try to ignore you, which will just mean you will be able to Dazzle every 3 seconds! Maybe even get a second Radiance into 1 fight!

At this point of the game you MUST peel for your ADC or another high priority target, however ADCs are typically stronger at this point of the game. If you can keep your ADC alive longer than yourself, you know you've done right. But that doesn't count if you died because you went gung ho! Just Dazzle and Shatter that angry Rengar or Kha'Zix and keep using Imbue and Face of the Mountain on the kiting carry!

You should be clearing wards and/or warding Baron Nashor like crazy. A Vision Ward doesn't hurt and neither does your team's contribution! Your team will hopefully have a healthy amount of Stealth Wards to help you in the vision wars of this point of the game.

Each and every one of you reading this guide belong here! You're all playing Taric and I love you. The reason I have been so dedicated to this guide recently is because of all the helpful feedback, the motivational view numbers and the strive to never receiving a down vote ever again, and that last one may take a while, but it's all the while I am willing to take if it means I am helping out all of you Taric enthusiasts!

Credit to: Binkya

11/6/15 - Added the "Notes" Section which will have an updating Date along with it, just for those who often use this guide and want to know what is going on with it.


30/5/15 - The "Taric, Spells and You!" has been made to look slightly more fabulous. Just so y'all know, most of these images are pretty much just place holders because they all suck and one day they will be made even more fab-***! (Fabulous and bad-***!)


27/5/15 - Yay more corrections! You'd think English wasn't my first language I swear. Improved some coding to make my life easier.


22/5/15 - Some more corrections


20/5/15 - Many corrections made, "Tips" added to the Skills section as well as "Important" stuff noted at the gameplay area. Appropriate colours to key words such as Armour, Magic Resistance, Heal/HP/Health, Etc. Just to highlight some things. There are many more to be done but I think taking it a step at a time is just fine for now. Honourable mentions added.


18/5/15 - Spruced up the guide a little thanks to MissMaw. There is more to be done. Made a correction here and there. MADE A KILLER BANNER BECAUSE WHY THE HELL NOT? Killer as in it kills your eyes to look at


14/5/15 - Changes have been made to the main mastery page as well as an addition to the Runes and Masteries section with an explanation. Changed "Sightstone > Targon's Brace" to "Targon's Brace > Sightstone" because we are almost bankrupt and need more financing. Finally added a section on why the Mana Potion is the meaning of life. I love all of you.


24/4/15 - Swapped the Alacrity enchantment for Homeguard because who uses Alacrity? Corrected a couple of errors. Nicer words about Nami. wondering what I am doing with my life and how to make this page look more fab.


19/4/15 - The changelog was added! YAY! (Thanks to Binkya!) So everything before this is highly innaccurate and I would like to appologise for it. Added the Yellow parts to the "Disclaimer" and "Runes and Masteries". Added Bard to "Vs. Champions". Replaced Greater Seal of Scaling Health with Greater Seal of Scaling Armor. Added the "Pre-Disclaimer Disclaimer". Changed items in the build. here isn't much added but I really just wanted to at least say hi!


4/1/15 - God knows what was changed here.


3/1/15 - Finally decided to update the guide from the [WIP] stage.


19/12/14 - Prepared my mind and body for the beginning of Season 5. More stuff changed. Answered a comment, that was productive. Yeah. Bye.


16/6/14 - Name changed from "How to play Taric, the right way!" to something that sounded more phonetically pleasing, "Taric, Healing and Peeling"! Probably changed some other stuff.


14/6/14 - And on the sixth day, Chappo said "Let there be this guide."